DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8074#0021
AN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY
OF THE PALACE
The Palace at Knossos is not an artistic unity. As a
Greek temple reveals the spirit of a people caught
at a particular moment, so the Palace, like a Gothic
cathedral or the temples of Karnak and Luxor, reveals
the history and progress of its builders. Older struc-
tures are adapted to a new plan; old foundations once
built over, lie in what at first seems a confusing Laby-
rinth where the spade has uncovered them. It must
always be borne in mind, as a main cause of this mul-
tiple stratification, that Knossos lies in what, as far as
human records go back, has always been a great seis-
mic centre. Earthquake after earthquake laid the
Palace low; always it rose again from its ruins more
magnificent until that final disaster from which there
was no recovery.
neolithic
In the Late Stone Age the low hill of Knossos was
covered by a considerable settlement, traces of which
are found lying to a great depth even beyond the
present limits of the Palace.
Magnificently placed as Knossos is to-day, it was
at that time, before centuries of occupation had raised
the level of the ground, merely a very low knoll lying
in a trough in the hills some three miles from the sea.
Ideal as the site was in later days when it looked
towards the mainland of Greece and the islands, it
is hard to explain its choice by inhabitants, whose
sole foreign connexion was with Egypt to the far south,
on any other theory than that they were as indigenous
as any race can claim to be.
OF THE PALACE
The Palace at Knossos is not an artistic unity. As a
Greek temple reveals the spirit of a people caught
at a particular moment, so the Palace, like a Gothic
cathedral or the temples of Karnak and Luxor, reveals
the history and progress of its builders. Older struc-
tures are adapted to a new plan; old foundations once
built over, lie in what at first seems a confusing Laby-
rinth where the spade has uncovered them. It must
always be borne in mind, as a main cause of this mul-
tiple stratification, that Knossos lies in what, as far as
human records go back, has always been a great seis-
mic centre. Earthquake after earthquake laid the
Palace low; always it rose again from its ruins more
magnificent until that final disaster from which there
was no recovery.
neolithic
In the Late Stone Age the low hill of Knossos was
covered by a considerable settlement, traces of which
are found lying to a great depth even beyond the
present limits of the Palace.
Magnificently placed as Knossos is to-day, it was
at that time, before centuries of occupation had raised
the level of the ground, merely a very low knoll lying
in a trough in the hills some three miles from the sea.
Ideal as the site was in later days when it looked
towards the mainland of Greece and the islands, it
is hard to explain its choice by inhabitants, whose
sole foreign connexion was with Egypt to the far south,
on any other theory than that they were as indigenous
as any race can claim to be.